[gnuspeech-contact] Updated TouchNTalk sources include useful tools

[David Hill]

The material in the SVN repository related to the haptic/ 
proprioceptive/auditory computer screen interface for the visually  
impaired -- "TouchNTalk" -- has been significantly updated using  
recently recovered original files, and includes some useful tools.

The software, all now GPL v.3, was developed as an application of the  
gnuspeech text-to-speech software within the computer human systems  
group at the university of Calgary (and later as a technology  
transfer project by the university spinoff company Trillium Sound  
Research Inc.), and is the subject of a paper in the IEEE  
Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics that may be accessed on- 
line at:

http://pages.cpsc.ucalgary.ca/~hill/papers/ieee-touch-n-talk-1988.pdf

The material includes the full sources for TouchNTalk, the full  
TabletKit, GrooveSliderPalette, tone generator, sample files, and PDF  
user manual.  The work involved a number of researchers over several  
years including myself (David Hill) as project leader, Christiane  
Grebe (neé Dohrn, my graduate student who completed her MSc on the  
project), Dalmazio Brisinda (who was responsible for developing the  
tools, as well as the most recent NeXTStep incarnation), Sheldon  
Maloff (who produced the original Atari 1040ST version), together  
with Ken Griffin, Richard Esau, and Shabu Hassiens.  The application   
represents several person-years of effort.  The work included human  
factors evaluation with both normally sighted subjects who were  
blindfolded, and subjects with complete visual impairment, the  
results of which are included in the paper mentioned above.

The software is considered part of the gnuspeech project, for what I  
hope are obvious reasons.  Like the text-to-speech core of the work,  
the software was originally developed for the NeXT computer under  
NeXTStep but will be ported to GNU/Linux under GnuStep (and also to  
the Macintosh).  Please let me know if you would be able to help.

David Hill
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Project Administrator